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AARP-Hartford trumps
FAIR on house insurance
premiums But how long
will it last?
1C0RNER
a_l_ ¦
¦
¦
¦ —
—I
Igy Paul GaUWln
pgauvin@barnstablepatriot.com
Insurance companies that mercilessly
redlined, some say aqualined, Cape Cod
by dropping home coverage a few years
ago in a pre-emptive strike against the pos-
sibility of a calamitous hurricane, are slowly
easing back into the Cape market, but at
more than double the premiums.
For example, One Beacon, which dropped
most of its Cape coverage a few years ago
without warning, is back for a share of the
lucrative Cape market, now sweetened by
higher premiums from spooked consumers.
People who might have been paying $500
to $700 for a roughly $300,000 property
when the company bailed out a few years
ago will, for example, roughly pay $2,000 for
the same or similarpolicy from that com-
pany this year.That's according to inde-
pendent agents, including John McAlpine,
who closed his agency last year in the wake
of the bailout by traditional underwriters
on the Cape and joined Eastern Insurance
Group, which has access to more under-
writers according to its Web site.
The Eastern Group says it is one of the
largest independent insurance agencies in
the state and claims to have direct relation-
ships with more than 45 major insurance
companies.
But evidently, the added access to under-
writers doesn't necessarily translate into
more modest premium increases. If one is
looking for price, one is told to check out
FAIR, the state-legislated safety net that
is demanding and getting hefty premium
hikes, the latest at 25 percent .
Where One Beacon might get $2,000,
FAIR will get $1,600. Is there any competi-
tion out there?
Enter AARP-Hartford and Jean Grant of
South Yarmouth.A few years ago, Grant
decided she didn't like doing business with
her insurer (who later dumped the Cape
house market entirely) and signed on with
AARP-Hartford.
"I got better coverage" than with her
prior insurer, she said last week. And the
price was right too, she said. "Ijust don't
understand why everybody is so flustered
because somebody with a computer in
Pakistan predicts a hurricane here."
What Grant also did -view it as a be-
neficent public service - was share her new
insurance information with friends, and
thereby created a choice other than FAIR
for people over 50 who have a member-
ship in AARP, the national organization for
seniors. AARP has a contract with Hart-
ford to offer home insurance to members
nationwide, thus creating a larger base of
high-risk, low-risk diversification that, logic
would allow, helps keeps premiums lower
than FAIR rates in the Cape market.
One elderly woman, who asked to remain
anonymous, said she was paying $1,300 in
premiums to FAIR until last June when
she switched to AARP-Hartford and is now
paying $700 "and I still was able to keep my
deductible at only $250."
"' As for Grant, she just renewed with
AARP-Hartford and reported a $200 in-
crease in her premium, to $900 -still $500
less than the current FAIR or $800 less than
next year's expected FAIR premiums and
$1,100 less than One Beacon as cited in the
earlier example in this column.
Without the details of the AARP-Hartford
contract, or how often it is renegotiated,
premium savings and coverages cannot be
predicted over a long period.
There may be changes in the wind. One
consumer who contacted AARP last week
for a quote in the Cape market received an
e-mailed reply that said, in part: "We have
received your request for a homeowner's
quote. We apologize for the inconvenience,
but your request requires special handling
(whatever that means)... We appreciate
your understanding. You will be hearing
from us soon."
Whether house premiums are linked in
any way to auto rate-setting practices in
this state that keeps big insurers out is an
issue that evades Joe Public's awareness
but stirs hot debate among competing
insurers.
What is known is that Floridians have
suffered horrendous increases in insurance
premiums because of real versus projected
hurricane damage. Joan Hernandez of
Homestead was billed $11,529 up from
$3,795 and Norvell A.S. Holyfield of North-
west Dade County $4,502 from $900 two
years ago, according to the Miami Herald.
The Cape may not be able to hold off
Florida-like premiums forever, but for the
moment, there are other choices besides
FAIR. AARP is one, and, say local agents,
the postal carriers union is another for its
members. » -
As some day it may happen
By Stew Goodwin
columnist@bartnstablepatriot.com
Ko-Ko the Lord High Executioner
in Gilbert and Sullivan's master-
piece The Mikado sings an amus-
ingly sinister ditty in Act I that artfully
describes many of our current policies,
especially those dealing with terrorism. It
begins like this:
"As some day it may happen that a
victim must be found;
I've got a little list -I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be
underground,
And who never would be missed -who
never would be missed!"
Ko-Ko's patter is mirrored in our blin-
kered policies. Inevitably
the prescribed remedy for
every perceived threat is
some form of interdiction.
Additionally, these policies
seem to take a page from
supply side economics in
that they deal with just
one side of the equation.
This strategy, while not
without merit, tends to foreclose options
and narrow choices. Let's look at how it
has worked with a topic on everyone's
mind: terrorism.
On Oct. 16, 2003, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld asked his closest aides
the right question. "Are we capturing,
killing, or deterring and dissuading more
terrorists every day than the madrassas
and radical clerics are recruiting, train-
ing, and deploying against us?"
Unfortunately, the answer that has
resounded from the intervening years has
been overwhelmingly negative. That by
itself suggests that we may not be on the
right track.
One measure of what is going on can
be seen in the Pentagon's own figures
on Iraq. The estimated number of in-
surgents has stayed constant for three
years while the number reported killed or
captured is more than double. The same
status applies to terrorists around the
world who are multiplyingmuch more
rapidly than we can eliminate them.
Moreover, during that span of time
militant Shi'ite Islamists have strength-
ened their positions in Iran and Iraq; an
obscure band of extremists in Lebanon,
Hezbollah, has risen to near mythic sta-
tus in the Muslim world; and in Afghani-
stan both the Taliban and the drug trade
are resurgent.
In this country, unprecedented inva- *
sions of civil liberties have produced few
tangible results. The airport security pro-
gram has been exposed as flawed, but we
are unwilling to spend the money needed
to upgrade the quality of screeners or to
buy the latest explosives detection tech-
nology. Other critical sites, such as ports,
chemical plants, and power grids remain
vulnerable. It has become clear that the
funds required to provide even minimum
security for our vast, open economy will
be mind boggling, and futile without
massive alterations to our accustomed
way of life.
The recent arrest of 24 people alleged
to be plotting the destruction of aircraft
headed here from London is positive,
but in the overall scheme of things is like
removing sand from a beach with twee-
zers. While interdiction has captured
our attention, relatively little top-level
time, energy, or money has been devoted
to the determination of why
people become terrorists, and
what conditions facilitatetheir
recruitment, training, and
deployment.
Since events have demon-
strated that we cannot cap-
ture, kill, deter, or dissuade
nearly as many terrorists as
are being created, and that we know very
little more about what makes terrorists
tick or citizens condone them than we
did before 9/11, maybe we should con-
sider broadening our approach.
Even as we balefully mutter: "Why do
they hate us?" we have a great deal more
in-depth knowledge about militant fun-
damentalism than we may realize. A good
place to begin our education would be
The FundamentalismProject completed
in the late 1990s. A group of our most
eminent scholars in the field published
a five-volume study (plus a summary
volume) that analyzed fundamentalism
in religions and nations throughout the
globe. And this study is but the tip of the
factual iceberg.
Making decisions without building
on this wealth of informed scholarship
makes about as much sense as trying
stem the flow of drugs into this country
without addressing demand or construct-
ing an energy program without consider-
ing conservation.
We can choose to prowl the streets like
Ko-Ko, list in one hand and axe in the
other, seeking out evildoers. My 4 1/2-
year-old grandson who spends a portion
of most days pretending to be Batman,
Spiderman, or Superman in pursuit of
"bad guys" might approve. However,
others might prefer a more thoughtfully
comprehensive strategy that promises
greater long-term success.
"As some day it may happen" is no lon-
ger conjecture. "Some day" has arrived.
We have yet to adjust.
^
^
^
^ Tg By E^"^ FyMaroncyl
Which way?
A
critic noticed that Superman's motto
- "Truth,justice and the American
way"-was edited down to the first two
words in the recent movie about the Man of
Steel. Have we, literally, lost our way?
My trip to England last month didn't start
out with that question, but I found some an-
swers during a three-day stay in Barnstaple,
our sister town.
To get there from London, you take a train
to Exeter/St. David's and switch to the Tarka
Line, a little rail shuttle that leaves roadways
behind as it passes small, tidy green fields
and pauses at crossroads stops. On Friday
evenings,jazz or bluegrass bands board the
trains, sometimes stepping off at a midway
station to lead passengers to a hotel for din-
ner.
Or perhaps you'd prefer to concentrate on
getting your Tarka Line Rail Ale Trail book
stamped at the pubs within walking distance
of stations along the line, including The Beer
Engine in Newton St. Cyres and The Old Malt
Scoop Inn in Lapford.
Can you imagine the MBTA doing anything
like that?
At the train station, there's a double-decker
bus waiting to take you across Barnstaple
Long Bridge over the River Taw. You leave
behind a collection of big-box grocery and
buildingstores for the narrow, curving streets
filled with small shops and offices on the op-
posite shore.
On Sunday, after worship services, the
stores are abuzz. At WHSmith, the American
visitor who reads a Cape Cod Times, Boston
Globe and New York Times daily fills two bags
with England's abundance of newspapers: the
Independent on Sunday, Daily Star Sunday,
People, Sunday Mirror, Sunday Express , Mail
on Sunday, Sunday Times, News of the World,
Sunday Telegraph , and Observer. It will take
two days to review the silly and serious con-
tent, and to admire a country that seems to
want its journalism (or, in some cases, gossip)
the old-fashioned way.
Near Barnstaple Parish Church of St. Peter
and St. Mary Magdalene, with its 14th
century
tower and spire, there 's the Barnstaple Youth
House. A flyer in the window announces a
family planning clinic.
It seems people here face things more di-
rectly than Americans, even if they talk about
them less. Some of the newspapers are famous
for their scantily-clad maidens and celebrities,
and an Army recruiting office in Barnstaple
sports a poster that promises, "Our privates
get more excitement."
What could be more direct than that? How
about the title of the exhibit at The Museum
of Barnstaple and North Devon: "Poo -A
Natural History of the Unmentionable. "
And let's not forget the deputy prime
minister's recent front-page denunciation
of President Bush's Middle East policies as
"crap." That comment , made in a supposedly
private meeting, was echoed on Litchdon
Street in Barnstaple in a wall print showing
repeated images of the President's face and
the word "Liar."
Yet for all these sharp exchanges, the
impression our sister town leaves with a visi-
tor is one of peace. Perhaps it's the feeling
that comes after surrendering an empire and
rejoining the world community as an equal
member.
To see a photo album of Barnstaple, turn to page B:8.
>Ttoughttrat|
rwilightj
Barnstaple band here
The Albert Hall Show Band from Barn-
staple , England , will be back in town
Wednesday for a 7:30 p.m. concert at The
Olde Colonial Courthouse on Route 6A in
Barnstable village. The 23-member band
last played here in 2000.
Admission is by a $5 donation at the
door to Tales of Cape Cod, the concert's
sponsor.
Lettersto the editor
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KETROSPECTIVES FROM THE ARCHIVES
IT WAS NEW ONCE - The new Barnstable-West Barnstable Elementary School, which
consolidated the two separate schools ineach village, was ready intime for opening day
in1957,althoughthefieldsleft somethingto bedesiredearly on. Itwouldtake another 30
years, or so, before its now-familiar playgroundwas added.
ACROSS TIME 6 PLACE